ESCAMBIA COUNTY, Fla. — A couple in Florida’s Panhandle faces felony charges Friday after local officials accused them of lying about winning a $1 million lottery prize.
Escambia County Sheriff’s Office deputies arrested 36-year-old Kira Enders and her boyfriend Dakota Jones this week after they said the couple tried to pass off two unskillfully pieced together $50 scratch-off tickets as one winning ticket worth $1 million, CBS News Miami reported.
Officials say Enders walked into a Florida Lottery office on March 1 in Pensacola with the fake ticket in hand. When she showed the ticket to the office workers, they immediately recognized it was fake.
"They had an individual that thought that they could crudely take two tickets and put them together and pretend as if they were a million-dollar winner," Escambia Sheriff Chip Simmons told the outlet.
Florida Lottery officials also said the ticket had a visible tear in the center of it, WFTV 9 reported.
Enders told them she was the owner of the ticket and signed an affidavit affirming the ticket was real. By signing it, she acknowledged perjury penalties if she was caught lying.
Less than a week later, Enders called the lottery office to check on the status of her prize when she and her boyfriend, Jones, were called in to speak to investigators. Investigators noted inconsistencies in both Enders and Jones’ stories, and Enders reportedly doubled down on her innocence.
"If you're gonna try to claim a million dollars, you've got to do a lot better than this. You know, you're not a lottery winner, you're a criminal,” Sheriff Simmons said.
Both people face felony fraud charges including forgery.
